{"id":2459,"date":"2017-01-03T09:01:19","date_gmt":"2017-01-03T17:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/fight-against-publishing-notices-in-newspapers-persists\/"},"modified":"2017-01-03T09:01:19","modified_gmt":"2017-01-03T17:01:19","slug":"fight-against-publishing-notices-in-newspapers-persists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/fight-against-publishing-notices-in-newspapers-persists\/","title":{"rendered":"Fight against publishing notices in newspapers persists"},"content":{"rendered":"

TRENTON, N.J. <\/strong>\u2014 As classified advertising, once the lifeblood of newspapers, has dried up, one constant has remained: a thick daily listing of government public notices. But legislative fights have put that at risk.<\/p>\n

A measure to allow government agencies in New Jersey to no longer publish their legal notices in newspapers recently stalled, but Republican Gov. Chris Christie said he will make the change a priority in 2017. And Democratic leaders in the Legislature aren\u2019t backing down from having the debate, either.<\/p>\n

Christie says the change would save taxpayers and residents $80 million, but the state\u2019s newspapers dispute that math. They say that the state spends $20 million on legal notice advertising each year and that more than half is reimbursed by private business. Christie\u2019s figures also apparently include an estimate that $60 million will be spent on public notices of pending foreclosures, a fee paid for by banks.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not only an issue in New Jersey. State lawmakers nationwide have considered ending the requirement to publish notices for things like public meetings and government bids, but lobbying efforts from publishers have stopped that so far. But as the audience for printed newspapers continues to dwindle, some think it\u2019s only a matter of time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think with the state legislatures it\u2019s just simply a matter of saving a few bucks,\u201d said Kip Cassino, a media analyst at Borrell Associates. \u201cIt\u2019s going to keep coming up and I think before the next decade ends, I don\u2019t think you\u2019re going to see the legals in newspapers anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

If this month\u2019s fight in New Jersey is any indication, though, that change won\u2019t come easily.<\/p>\n

Faced with legislation put on a fast track in Trenton, the state\u2019s newspapers launched a full-court press against the measure. Most of the newspapers owned by Gannett Co., the nation\u2019s largest newspaper chain, devoted their front pages to an editorial against the measure.<\/p>\n

Christie called out the \u201cbillionaire\u201d owners of the newspapers, saying that they made the attack personal against him so that they could continue \u201cfeeding like pigs at the government trough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Classified advertising was formerly the lifeblood of newspapers before Craigslist launched and took a huge chunk from that profitable revenue stream.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers in states including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Alaska have debated doing away with public notices, but those measures have stalled or not passed. Arizona\u2019s Legislature this year approved a bill allowing corporations to file their legal notices with a state regulator, but public agencies still have to publish them in newspapers.<\/p>\n

In Massachusetts, a new law goes into effect Jan. 21, developed as a compromise to discussions about allowing government agencies to bypass newspapers, that will require newspapers to publish legal notices online as well as in print. The state\u2019s newspapers will also be required to run a statewide website to collect all of the notices. That already happens in New Jersey, although it\u2019s unclear whether that would continue if the measure supported by Christie passes.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t want to put the fox in charge of the hen house,\u201d said Robert Ambrogi, of the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association. \u201cThe main reason legal notices are published is to ensure government transparency and government accountability. In order to have that process done in a neutral and objective way, it needs to be managed and overseen by a third party.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TRENTON, N.J. \u2014 As classified advertising, once the lifeblood of newspapers, has dried up, one constant has remained: a thick daily listing of government public notices. But legislative fights have put that at risk. A measure to allow government agencies in New Jersey to no longer publish their legal notices in newspapers recently stalled, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":2460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-2459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2459"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}